I'm Better Off On My Own
by amoenavi
Summary: There was always something more on the horizon if she could only reach it. Now she has forever to keep chasing the sun. Isobel-centric character piece.


**Prompt**: Isobel, _it's getting boring by the sea_ for the Women of TVD comment ficathon

_i thought it'd be easy  
>but no one believes me<em>

-x-

Blood is viscous.

And sticky.

It startles her the first time she drinks. When she'd watched Damon, it'd seemed like he was just a thirsty man drinking water, gulp after gulp being drained easily from the neck. No effort, no skill, just thirst. That isn't the case, she discovers, teeth digging into the barkeep's throat. She's sucking, pulling the blood out of the veins like a thick milkshake through a straw, trying hard to be as natural as she thought she would be. As she should be. He makes a sudden move and she loses her grip, teeth sliding over the blood coating his throat.

Isobel grabs his head and twists, neck snapping and body going limp in her arms. Her first kill, she thinks. She continues to suck, moves her mouth along the holes she made to try to get a better angle.

Licks up the column of his throat to get the spills.

She leaves him in the alleyway, half-drained. Goes back to his car and slides into the driver's seat, key in the ignition; before the door's closed fully, she's leaving this bar, this body, this _failure_ behind. She glances at the rearview mirror before crossing state lines.

Her entire face is covered in his blood, dark red against ivory skin. She swipes at it, hand dragging along the stickiness on her cheek.

How annoying.

-x-

_this place is so empty,  
>my thoughts are so tempting<em>

-x-

Before she was turned, she'd thought this - _this_ is what she wanted. Manipulation and lying and leaving people behind and killing and using. _This_ was the life she'd been born for - _made_ for.

All the human connections she'd made were ephemeral. Fleeting.

She'd fucked John Gilbert because he'd asked. Because he'd followed her around like a lost puppy for _years_, offering to take her to dances, to the Grill, to the cemetery to drink. He'd given her his family's good liquor, handed over historic journals that held the secrets of the town.

She'd fucked John Gilbert because he'd tell her stories.

Late at night, lying down in the sparse grass and weeds where his ancestors were buried, his fingers skating over the bare skin of her hip, he'd tell her about the vampires who'd inhabited this town, tried to burn it to the ground. The fierce Pearl who held Johnathan Gilbert's attention. Vicious Katherine Pierce and her Salvatore Brothers, Stefan the complicated and Damon the naive. His fingers, always cold, always halting, asking permission, would unzip her jeans as she asked for another story, immensely bored with the silence and the anticipation she could feel coming off of John in waves. He never seemed insulted, never understood that she was using him. He was a teenager who was in love with her and his world started and ended there.

She got pregnant. Tried not to be horrified by the very thought of _John Gilbert_ having something as permanent inside of her as a child.

Just another statistic.

Seventeen and pregnant. So trivial. So trite.

Nine months passed quickly; without sex, she still had her stories.

"Isobel, I don't think I should be telling these..." John's voice dropped to a whisper, sounding simultaneously horrified and disapproving as only he knew how, "_vampire_ stories. Isn't there something about how babies can hear their parents' voices?"

Isobel rolled her eyes. "The verdict's still out on whether this is your child," she raised her nose into the air, looked down at him from her position perched on the granite. "Grow some balls, John. Tell the stories. We won't have to deal with this mistake past May anyway."

He'd looked enraged then, whether it was the insult or the dismissal of their 'eternal bond' of having a child together, she wasn't sure. He'd just walked right out of the room, leaving her sitting on his brother's kitchen counter with no way to get down.

She probably should have worried. Should have thought he'd left her there. But.

He walked back in within five minutes, shoulders slumped in defeat, wounded look on his face. Like a kicked puppy.

He started, voice resigned, "In October of 1864, Stefan Salvatore killed Jonathan Gilbert's wife..."

She grinned like the cat that caught the canary.

He'd always come back. He was a masochist and she was his favorite brand of torture.

Simple.

-x-

_i tried to be perfect, but nothing was worth it  
>i don't believe it makes me real<em>

-x-

After a month of staying in the car, she gets pulled over off of Route 2 by a young, nervous-looking police officer.

He doesn't mean to bother her, he says, it's just that this car is registered under a dead man's name and can she show him the license and registration?

_Stupid, stupid mistake. Amateur mistake. Unacceptable._

His name was Neal. This was his first day on the job.

She snaps his neck and begins to suck.

Kill two.

-x-

Alaric had loved her with everything he had in him.

When she married Alaric, she knew he wouldn't tell her stories. His hands were hot, never halting, never asking. His fingers twisted roughly and she'd keen, head rolling back onto the pillow. She'd flip him over, take control. Every moment with him felt fleeting at first, like a flame about to go out. Her skin was on fire and she thought it was love.

She brought him lunch on her periods off; packed and perfect inside a brown paper bag. She felt like she'd found her calling. Love.

"I love you," she'd write on the fogged up windows of his office. Her breath obscured him from her sight only to disappear as it cooled.

"Forever," he'd write back when he noticed her.

And then the reality of married life set in; the monotony, the normalcy. She grew restless after three months, went to work with the relief of a convict escaping from jail. Threw herself headlong back into the mythos that surrounded her tiny hometown in Virginia. She wasn't meant for married life. She wasn't meant for anything at all.

Alaric knew. He was smart, he understood her. He was not seventeen and in love with the girl he could never really have. He was a history teacher. No matter what she did, he'd seen it all before. It made her skin crawl, being predictable, being pedestrian.

He'd watch her as though he knew it was only a matter of time before she left him. Flitting through the rooms, staying out late, coming home in the morning smelling of cheap alcohol. She'd say she loved him through her teeth or over her shoulder, head already bent in another direction, looking out for something else. Something more.

-x-

She found that in Damon Salvatore.

It was a complete coincidence – or a sign from the universe – when she met him first. He was a dark shock of hair against pale skin, a smirk that suggested danger. He was chasing some sorority girls at Duke, some of her students. Sat in on a class with her just for the irony.

She didn't recognize him, he'd never posed for pictures when he was alive, too busy running around outside and chasing girls with curls and wicked smiles.

He'd asked a question about a comet.

-x-

She fucks John Gilbert again six months after she's turned.

Finds him hiding out in a bar in Chicago, waltzes up to him with a bounce in her step. "Long time, no see, John." To his credit, she supposes, he doesn't jump. Doesn't flinch. Barely even looks surprised to see her there. "Buy me a drink."

"Aren't you married?" he asks wearily even as he signals the bartender for another one. "Or did you tire of him too?"

Her smile curls at the edge, mean. "I didn't tire of you. Tiring of someone implies that there was an interest at some point." Reaches out and takes the maraschino cherry from his drink, waits until he's looking to pop it into her mouth and pulls it off, leaving the thin stem. His eyes follow the line of her throat as she swallows and he's always been too easy. "You have a hotel room, Gilbert?" she asks, tilting her head to the side.

His eyes flick up to her face. They're a colder blue now than they were before, more piercing. She wonders vaguely way what happened to make him harsher. Sharper around the edges.

She wonders if she can take some credit.

He raises his glass to his lips, tosses back the remaining scotch. Blinks at the burn of it and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like he's getting ready for something unpleasant. "Let's go before I sober up and remember that you're a heartless, selfish bitch."

"Oh, _ouch_," her tone is mocking, sardonic. Flat. "That would hurt if I cared." Follows him out of the bar anyway.

His hands are rougher now. He grabs at her waist as soon as they get outside, calluses rubbing against the smooth skin of her stomach beneath her top, shoving her up against the building. She's careful to let him move her as easily as he would if she were human, breakable, vulnerable; slam her up against the building. She winces like it hurts, plays the part. Waits for him to apologize like he used to when he'd push her into the ground a bit too hard, rocks digging into the backs of her thighs, sure to leave red marks.

He doesn't.

-x-

_i meant all the things i said_

-x-

She'd called John, out of habit, out of boredom. To make Alaric mad.

Because a photo of a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl with Isobel's nose and John's smile showed up in her mailbox, John's chicken-scratch underneath. _Elena._

He picked up immediately, grin already evident in his voice. "Izzy, what's the occasion?"

She stayed silent on the phone, nail picking at the folded over corner of the picture.

When she finally spoke, her voice began to crack. "Elena, huh?"

-x-

She opens the window of the hotel room after. Makes sure he's watching.

He's frantic when she steps up onto the ledge. His voice is a desperate plea,

"Isobel - "

She jumps.

-x-

She made the call after a particularly boring day. John picked up.

"Vampires," was all she said. "Know any?"

-x-

Katherine Pierce hunts her down outside Las Vegas.

Isobel bares her teeth for one moment before being shoved into a brick wall by her ancestor.

"Well, well, what have we here." Katherine tilts her head to the side, looking every bit the seventeen she once was. "Isobel Flemming."

"Katherine Pierce," she manages to grit out, hand grasping at the vice-like grip Katherine has on her neck. She releases and Isobel chokes, rubs at her neck. "You're supposed to be in a tomb."

Kat grins. "So are you, darling." One hand strokes down the side of her face. "But you're too much like me."

"What can I say?" Isobel grins back. "The spoiled apple doesn't fall far from the rotted tree."

The vampiress grins wider, showing every one of her gleaming white teeth. "I was hoping you would say that."

-x-

Damon Salvatore agreed to turn her.

Something about the full circle completion of it made Isobel's heart race.

-x-

Contrary to popular belief, she comes back into Mystic Falls more than once.

Nostalgia. Curiosity. Etc.

Elena takes her breath away. She looks just like Katherine, but softer. Kinder. Warmer. Everything about her screams "normal" and "human" in a way that Isobel could never manage.

And yet. She loves her. She loves this girl with her straightened hair and her dimples and her wholesome apple pie eye batting. She loves her so much that it occurs to her that she never really loved anyone at all before.

She sees Alaric with that Jenna Sommers. The one with Logan Fell. The one who partied too hard and drank too much and was so...

Average at best.

Ric looks genuinely happy. She guesses that that's what he wanted all along.

-x-

She regrets turning every single day when the sun rises and she knows she'll live to see ten million more. Every day that her daughter grows older and she stays the same.

One day, Elena will die. But Isobel will be damned if it's on her watch.

-x-

_if you believe it's in my soul,  
>i'd take all the words that i know,<br>just to see if it would show  
>that i'm trying to let you know<br>**that i'm better off on my own**_

- _Pieces_ by SUM41

-x-


End file.
